Veiled

Chapter 9

Beneath the Treasury in Westminster is an underground complex called the Churchill War Rooms. It’s a museum, though not a well-known one; the tourists that crowd London in the holiday seasons usually want to see places like the British Museum and the National Gallery, and the Churchill War Rooms get less than a tenth of the visitors of either of those. It was built on the eve of the Second World War, a concrete labyrinth designed to withstand bombing raids, and during those long dark years it was the place from where Churchill and his cabinet directed the wartime efforts of Britain.

But the Churchill War Rooms isn’t the only tunnel network beneath this city. People have been living in London for a very long time, and while there have been people, there have been mages. It was inevitable that the Council would set up their headquarters there. The original centre for the Council was a sprawling complex of spires and towers situated near the old St. Paul’s Cathedral in the City. It was burnt to ash in the 1666 Great Fire of London, along with the old cathedral, the Royal Exchange, and pretty much everything else within the City limits. (Depending on who you believe, the destruction of Council headquarters might have been the reason for the Great Fire, and the “started in a bakery” explanation a cover-up, but that’s another story.)

With their old base destroyed, the Council needed a new one, and an argument broke out as to where to go. The Isolationists wanted a place out in the countryside where they’d have as little interaction with normal humans as possible. The more moderate members wanted to pick a smaller city like Gloucester or Oxford. But the Directors wanted their power centre here, in the heart of the City, and as London was being rebuilt they took the opportunity to lay the foundations for what would become the new centre of magical government in Britain for the next three hundred and fifty years.

One of the reasons the Directors won the argument was that they’d noticed which way the wind was blowing. Traditionally mages had lived in towers, way up above the ground, to the point where it had become a status symbol. Unfortunately for the status-conscious mages of that time period, spells and technology had been evolving at a good clip, and the seventeenth century’s brisk trade in Light-Dark warfare provided the more innovative mages on both sides with plenty of opportunity to give the new weapons a test-drive. Experimental data proved that that towers and artillery didn’t mix. After several well-publicised incidents of traditionally defended towers being brought down by cannon fire, even the slower-witted members of the Light Council figured out that while towers might work for personal residences, they probably weren’t the best choice for a military centre of government.

Building a centre of government below ground, on the other hand, was a different story. Compared to a traditional tower or castle, an underground complex would be harder to attack, easier to defend, and much more likely to go unnoticed by any normal people living on the surface. So in the aftermath of the Great Fire, the first tunnels were burrowed into the area beneath what’s now modern Westminster. With earth and matter mages to do the bulk of the work, the tunnels expanded fast, and within a generation they’d become a sprawling warren. The Summer War did a good job of proving the security of the tunnel network, and the Council’s stayed there ever since. Somewhere during one of the various Dark-Light skirmishes the tunnels started getting called the War Rooms, and the name stuck.

Or so the story goes . . . but I might have got it wrong. Light mages learn stories like this as they grow up, picking up the culture and the traditions, but I spent my childhood in the normal world and my apprenticeship surrounded by Dark mages, and a good part of my life since then has revolved around my shop. I’ve never really been inside the Light mage circles. For that matter, this was the first time I’d ever actually been to the War Rooms.

I suppose I should look on the bright side. I might be going to an indictment, but at least it wasn’t mine. Yet.

Getting through security took longer than I expected. The security personnel hired by the Council are famous for their complete lack of any kind of a sense of humour, and I was kept answering questions until Haken finally showed up. “There you are,” Haken said, then addressed the man who’d been interviewing me. “He’s with me.”

The security man checked Haken’s signet, then handed my card back without a smile. “Took you long enough,” Haken said as he led me into the tunnels.

“Sorry. First time.”

“Fair enough. Just don’t go wandering off, okay?”

We turned into a wider corridor, smaller passages branching off. To my surprise, the tunnels actually felt a lot more spacious than Keeper headquarters. The tunnel ceiling was high, a good twenty feet or so, and the walls were made out of some strange kind of stone, light grey with tiny white flecks that gleamed in the light. The tunnels were electric-lit, bright spherical lamps set at regular intervals along the walls, and the corridor was filled with people, men and women hurrying back and forth. There was a bustling, serious feel to the movement, brisk and impersonal.

The corridor opened up into a huge hallway with an arched roof. Craning my neck and looking upwards, I saw that the ceiling was divided by gold buttresses, each supporting chandeliers that glowed with white light. Massive cylindrical pillars ran from the buttresses down to the floor. The floor itself was grey-white stone, inlaid with patterns that looked like ancient coats of arms, and made of some hard material that echoed with our footsteps. And there were a lot of footsteps; I could see at least thirty people, some crossing the wide-open space at the centre and others talking in the shadows of the pillars. Circular alcoves were situated along the walls, and corridors led off deeper into the War Rooms. There were wooden desks at the far end, and beyond them I saw three sets of guarded doors.

“Come on, Verus,” Haken said. I’d slowed down to stare. “You look like a tourist.”

I caught Haken up. “Okay, I have to admit, this is impressive.”

“This is the Belfry,” Haken said. As we crossed the floor, he pointed out the doors beyond the desks. “Far doors lead to the Star Chamber and the Conclave. The ones on the right go to the Courts of Justice. If you’re not Inner Circle, you aren’t allowed in without a pass, so go to the clerk on the right.”

We reached the far side and Haken spoke briefly with the woman behind one of the desks, then returned. “They’ve already started.”

“What’s started?” I asked as Haken headed towards one of the alcoves. “The indictment?”

“Yeah.”

“So . . . how does this whole indictment thing work again?”

The alcoves were arched and lined in gold; a circular table sat in the middle of a curved bench. Haken dropped into the seat and leant back. “The indictment’s a formal statement by the Council that someone’s committed a crime. No indictment, no arrest.”

I sat opposite. “I thought Keepers could make arrests on their own.”

“Yeah, but it’s not our authority—it’s delegated. We can do small stuff on our own account, but anything important has to be authorised by a Council jury.” Haken nodded towards the doors. “Rain—he’s the Keeper in charge of the case—he’s making an argument to a panel of judges. They say yes, we go out and arrest whoever’s name’s on the paper. They say no, we go back to the office and find something else to do.”

I looked across at the closed doors. There was something vaguely disturbing about the idea that someone—maybe a lot of someones—was having their life decided by others right now. What would happen if an indictment like that was brought against me? “Are we supposed to be there?”

“We’re on the witness list,” Haken said. “They might call us up to give evidence, so we have to make ourselves available as long as the case is still going.” He shrugged and pulled out a folder and a pen. “You might want to get comfortable.”

I looked back at him, raised my eyebrows, then took a look around the Belfry. The place was still busy; it didn’t seem as though nothing was happening. I settled down to wait.

It was three hours later.

“Okay, this is ridiculous,” I said. “How long are they going to take?”

Haken shrugged. He had his folder open on the table and was reading through a thick report, making notes in the margins. “You’re the diviner.”

Watching the people walking back and forth over the floor of the Belfry had been interesting, for a while. After the first hour, I’d started checking everybody walking in our direction, looking to see if they were approaching us. I’d spent the second and part of the third hour writing e-mails on my phone. Now we were getting into the fourth hour and I still hadn’t spotted any future in which we’d be called for. “You know, I used to have all kinds of ideas about what working for the Council would be like. Never occurred to me that it mostly came down to sitting around waiting.”

“Haven’t worked with many bureaucracies, have you?”

“Not so much.” I looked around. “Does this place have a sandwich shop or something?”

Haken looked at me. “You’re asking whether the centre of government of the Light Council of Britain has a sandwich shop.”

“Well, it’d be useful.”

Haken shook his head.

“Does it usually take them this long?”

“No. Most indictments are open-and-shut. Five or ten minutes, once the formalities are done. Maybe an hour, if it’s a breach of the Concord or they’re authorising deadly force.”

“So what does it mean if they’ve taken three hours?”

Haken leant back, resting his head against the padded bench, and tapped the table. His fingers rapped against the wood as he stared past my shoulder. “I heard there were going to be Council members at this one.”

“I’m guessing that’s not a good thing.”

“Yeah. If they issue an indictment against all of White Rose, it’s going to get ugly.”

“Is that what they’re arguing about? How seriously they’re going to take this?”

“The ones who’ve really been on our case over Rayfield are the Guardians and the Unitarians,” Haken said. “Probably the Guardians are going to be pushing for a full indictment and the Unitarians are going to want the whole thing dropped. Usually the Centrists are with the Unitarians on this one, but Rayfield was Nirvathis’s apprentice, so . . .” He shrugged.

I tried to follow what Haken was getting at and couldn’t. It was an uncomfortable feeling—usually I’m the one who understands what’s going on. Now I was the clueless one and I didn’t like it. Council politics are byzantine and I was out of my depth.

One part I did understand: the attack last night and what it meant. I studied Haken, searching through the futures to see how he’d react to what I was about to say. “Is that all there is?”

“What do you mean?”

“White Rose have their own areas of influence, don’t they?”

“Maybe.”

“From what I’ve heard, some of White Rose’s clients work for the Council,” I said. “Maybe they’re on the Council.”

Haken glanced out over the floor. It looked casual, but I noticed his eyes do a quick sweep of every area within earshot. “You might want to be careful where you talk about stuff like that.”

“Yeah, well, if I’m getting called as a witness, you probably want me to have some idea what I should be saying. So am I right? It’s not about which factions want to do something about White Rose, it’s about which factions are in bed with them. Kind of literally, in this case.”

Haken let out a breath and turned to me. “Look. You’re coming into the middle of something that’s been going for a long while. White Rose controls a lot of secrets, and if they get out, there are Light mages who are going to lose big. Now, you’re not involved in the Rayfield case directly, but sooner or later someone’s going to connect the dots and when they do, you need to keep your shit wired tight. If they can save their careers by disappearing you, they aren’t going to think twice.”

“Does this happen with every case the Order of the Star gets?” I asked. “One faction wanting one result, another faction wanting another, both of them willing to stab if you get the wrong answer?”

“Not every case. But the high-profile ones? Yeah.”

I looked at Haken curiously. “How do you live with it? It’s bad enough having to watch the people you’re supposed to be policing without having to worry you’ll get shot in the back by the ones who are supposed to be on your side.”

Haken shrugged. “You survive. What else can you do?”

We sat in silence for a little while, listening to the murmurs and footsteps echoing around the Belfry. “Mind if I ask you something?” I said.

“Go for it.”

“You’ve worked with Caldera a while, right?”

“Since last year.”

“Does she have some kind of issues about this stuff that I should know about?” I said. “Because I was talking with her about this and it didn’t go so well.”

“What did you say?”

“I sort of implied that we might not be able to trust the people we were working for,” I said. “Kind of like what you just told me.”

“Ah.”

“Ah?”

“You know what rank Caldera is?”

“In the Keepers? Journeyman, right?”

“That’s right. Know how long she’s been there?”

I shook my head.

“A while.”

I looked at Haken. He looked back at me expectantly, as if he’d answered my question. “Maybe I’m being slow here,” I said. “Could you lay it out for me?”

“Caldera’s a bit of an idealist,” Haken said. “You want a mentor at the investigation side of the job, she’s great. Thing is, you want to get ahead, it takes a bit more than that. You have to play the game.” Haken shrugged. “Caldera’s good at what she does. But there’s a reason she hasn’t been promoted.”

“Does that have anything to do with why she seems to get assigned the really dangerous jobs?”

“Not the really dangerous ones . . .” I kept looking at Haken and he raised a hand. “She volunteers, all right? I keep telling her to pass them up.”

“You said she doesn’t play the game,” I said quietly. “Any chance she’s made a few enemies in the Order of the Star? Some people who’d be happy to get rid of her?”

“No.” Haken shook his head. “Caldera’s a good Keeper. The brass know that. They send her out, they know she’ll do a good job. But to get up the ranks, you need to do more than be good at your job. You need friends in higher places.” Haken paused. “You want to make a go of it in our Order, you might want to keep that in mind.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I’m not a Keeper.”

“Doesn’t matter as much as you think,” Haken said. “The Council can always use people who know how to be discreet.”

I gave Haken a sharp look. He held my eyes for a couple of seconds, then shrugged and the moment was gone. “Just something to remember.”

“. . . Sure.”

Something moved in the futures. I looked to the right out across the Belfry and saw a blond woman approaching us over the polished floor, heels tapping on the stone. She was dressed smartly, and as she came within earshot she addressed us with an upper-class accent. “Keeper Haken? You’re required in court.”

Haken nodded and put away his report. “See you when I get out.” Haken and the woman walked away towards the opposite doors. They didn’t look back.

As they disappeared behind the columns I went back to scanning futures. With Haken gone I could look further—it’s always easier when you don’t have someone nearby cluttering things up. After a moment, I spotted someone relatively close. He was going to approach me this time, and his name was . . . Huh. Where have I heard that before?

I sat for a few minutes, thinking. I didn’t react as the figure crossed the floor towards me and halted at the alcove. “Mage Verus?” a voice said.

“Mm-hm.” I looked up with a frown. I’d already seen the man in my future sight: English features, nice suit, brown hair, neutral expression. He looked like a Council functionary, and I’d definitely seen him before. Where had it been . . . ?

“If you’re not too busy, we’d like to speak to you concerning your investigation,” the man said. “My name is—”

“Barrayar.”

Barrayar didn’t react visibly. He obviously knew what I was. “If you’d come with me?”

I rose and let Barrayar lead the way across the floor. He didn’t speak, and I didn’t either. Looking at Barrayar reminded me of . . . dancing? Music? Something involving the Council . . .

We reached the doors that Haken had disappeared through. The men guarding the position were Council security; they gave Barrayar a glance but didn’t challenge him. We passed through into more corridors, branching left and right. There seemed to be fewer people around this time. Barrayar led me around a corner, towards a junction . . .

And suddenly I remembered where I’d met Barrayar before. I stopped dead. Barrayar paused, turned. “Is there a problem?”

I stared back at him for a second, then gave him a smile that didn’t touch my eyes. “No,” I said. “No problem.” I kept walking.

We turned right at the T junction. I was searching through the futures in which I tried to open the doors we were passing, making myself a mental map of the place. The door on the right led into the back rooms of a courtroom, maybe the same one Haken was in. That could be useful. The one on the left led to an interview room. The one behind was some sort of cell. Next left was locked. Next right . . .

There you are. Next question: how was Barrayar going to react to what I was about to do? He didn’t look physically imposing—he was shorter than average and on the slim side—but I’d already checked out the futures in which I attacked the guy, and I knew he was faster than he looked.

But then, so am I. Barrayar halted at the door on the right. “If you’d just . . .”

I walked past without slowing. “Excuse me,” Barrayar said to my retreating back. “It’s this way.”

“I know.”

Barrayar started to follow me. “Your meeting’s in here.”

I pointed forward. “Tell your boss I’ll be in the . . . conservatory? Whatever you call the room with the water feature and the plants.”

I kept walking. My back itched and I knew Barrayar was staring at me. Watching the futures, I caught a few fleeting glimpses of action, there and gone too fast to see, then they cleared away and there was nothing. I reached the end of the corridor and turned the corner. Barrayar didn’t follow.

You have to give the Council credit; they do build nice architecture. The conservatory was a large room with a high ceiling, structured as a kind of ceremonial garden. Small trees grew from carefully cultivated squares of earth, flowering bushes and shrubs grew up around raised sections of floor, and water bubbled up from a fountain into an indoor pool. There was enough greenery to provide concealment, and I had to scan through the futures to see whether I was alone in the room. I was, but I could tell that others were within earshot, close enough to hear a shout or scream. Good.

There was a stone bench by the pool and I took a seat. The only sound was the gentle splashing of the fountain. The air smelt sweet and flowery; there were rhododendrons and hydrangeas all around, blooming in red and violet. I breathed in and out slowly, forcing myself to relax. The things I said and did in the next few minutes were going to have very long-term consequences, and I needed to be calm.

Footsteps sounded from the direction of the hallway. I closed my eyes and kept them closed. The footsteps drew nearer, and I tracked their owner by sound and divination as he walked into the observatory, wound his way around the bushes, stepped up onto the rock garden, and came to a stop on the other side of the pool from me.

There was a silence. I didn’t move.

The figure on the other side of the pool spoke. “Mage Verus.”

I opened my eyes. Standing opposite me was a man in his fifties, with thin white hair. He was dressed in Council ceremonial robes, understated but expensive, and he had his hands clasped behind his back. His most distinctive feature was his eyes: they were pale, almost colourless, and they were watching me steadily.

“Councillor Levistus,” I said. “I understand you wanted to see me.”

It’s strange how one encounter can change your life. Before today I had met Levistus exactly once. It had been in Canary Wharf, for a private conversation that lasted hardly any time at all. I’d been in and out of his office in under twenty minutes, and since then, we’d never communicated in any way—no phone, no e-mail, no messages. It was as though we’d never met.

And yet, as a result of that one brief meeting, Levistus had become my worst and most dangerous enemy out of all the Light mages in Britain. That fifteen-minute conversation had led to an escalating series of attempts on my life, ranging from subtle betrayals and reassignments that left me exposed, all the way up to outright assassination attempts employing everything from other mages to bound elementals to (on one particularly memorable occasion) a rocket launcher. Directly and indirectly, Levistus has tried to get me killed more times than any person alive, and given that he’s a junior member of the Light Council, there’s absolutely nothing I can do to him in return.

On the other hand, while I can’t do anything to Levistus, the same doesn’t apply to his agents. An awful lot of the people who’d gone after me on Levistus’s orders were now dead, including a Keeper named Griff, a Light mage named Belthas, and an enslaved air elemental named Thirteen, as well as various lower-level employees whose names I’d never learnt. At some point Levistus must have gotten the message, because he’d stopped sending assassins. That didn’t mean his feelings had changed. In fact, I was pretty sure it had made him like me less.

“I believe I asked you to come to the interview room,” Levistus said. He had a measured, detached sort of voice. There was little variation in tone: his words were as expressionless as his face.

“Thanks, but I’m not walking into any more private interviews with you.”

Levistus raised his eyebrows slightly. “And you believe that out here you are safe?”

“It makes it a little less convenient for you to get an air elemental to asphyxiate me. Did you bring one along this time?”

“I would have expected you to know the answer to that already.”

“I do. Just wondered whether you’d lie about it.”

Levistus tilted his head slightly, studying me. “If I decided to devote my full resources to destroying you, how long do you think you would survive?”

“That’s actually quite an interesting question,” I said, raising a finger. “You do have a lot of resources, and I’m sure it’s something you’ve done before. On the other hand, as I’m sure you’ve discovered, my particular type of magic is pretty good at dealing with this sort of problem. Personally, I’d put my chances of survival somewhere between thirty and forty percent. If you’d give me some more information about your plans, I’d be able to give you a more accurate estimate.”

“Interesting,” Levistus said. “So given that—by your own admission—your odds of survival would be less probable than the alternative, perhaps you could explain why you see fit to continue to antagonise me.”

“I suppose you’d prefer if I came to you humbly and offered to apologise.”

“It would be wise.”

I sighed, then straightened my back and looked Levistus right in the eyes. “And if I don’t, what are you going to do about it? If you had a way to kill me off efficiently, you’d have done it already. The only reason you stopped sending assassins was because it wasn’t working. So no, I’m not going to bow and scrape. Maybe it’d make you a tiny bit less likely to carry on trying to kill me, but quite frankly, given the amount of shit you’ve caused me, it isn’t worth the effort. Does that answer your question?”

I’d expected Levistus to get angry. Instead he only nodded. “Do you know why you are here?”

“Why I’m here in this room? Why I’m here on Earth? Why—?”

“Why the Council is currently deciding whether to issue an indictment against the members of White Rose,” Levistus said. “And why this situation has developed.”

I shrugged. “Mostly because an assassin-mage by the name of Chamois decided to keep an appointment at Pudding Mill Lane.”

“And do you know the name of his employer?”

I didn’t answer.

“You know nothing of importance.” Levistus’s voice was unemotional; it was a statement, not an insult. “Once again, you have managed to involve yourself in a long-term conflict of which you have absolutely no understanding.”

I spread my hands. “If you feel like educating me about the wider context, I’d be happy to benefit.”

“Morden’s goal for years has been to gain a seat upon the Council.” Levistus watched me steadily. “As of this spring, a seat on the Junior Council will be open for reassignment. This is why Morden has timed his proposal as he has. Without Morden’s involvement, the seat would be assigned to Nirvathis. At present, Morden lacks sufficient support to push his proposal through.”

And Nirvathis is your puppet. Yeah, I could see why Levistus wouldn’t want it to go to Morden. “Given our relationship, why exactly are you telling me this again?”

An expression of irritation flickered across Levistus’s face. “This is common knowledge to anyone with an elementary understanding of Council politics. Please believe that I have an abundance of matters more pressing than providing you with remedial education.”

That stung, especially since I knew it was true. “Go on.”

“To push through his proposal, Morden needs to significantly change the political landscape of the Council,” Levistus said. “He has chosen to do so by targeting White Rose. If he succeeds in destroying or suborning them, he will gain significant influence. Enough to win him his seat.”

“Hold up,” I said. “How exactly would destroying White Rose get Morden anything?”

Levistus had the expression of a teacher dealing with a particularly slow-witted pupil. “White Rose’s influence is exercised through the information they possess. If Morden were to gain control of their records and databases, their influence would become his. He would become the most powerful Dark mage in the British Isles, in a position to begin taking over the Council from the inside.”

“Somehow I doubt it’d be quite as simple as that, but I get your point. So if you get on so well with White Rose, why don’t you use all of your abundant power to have the indictment squashed?”

Levistus’s lips thinned. “Unfortunately, certain mages within the Council have taken this opportunity to pursue their existing feuds with White Rose as an organisation.”

“Gosh,” I said dryly. “I can’t imagine why some of the Light Council would have a problem with an organisation based around sex slavery.”

“This is not a laughing matter. If Morden achieves his goals, he will command more power than any Dark mage has had since the Gate Rune War.”

“This is all very interesting,” I said, “but I think there’s something you’ve forgotten. You’re right, I don’t particularly like Morden. However, I also don’t particularly like you. And since Mage Nirvathis is a friend of yours, it’s a safe bet I’m not going to like him either. Why should I care whether the Council seat goes to a Light-aligned bastard or a Dark-aligned bastard?”

“I was under the impression that you claimed to oppose what Dark mages stood for.”

“Yeah, you tried that one last time.”

“And you claimed to be a mercenary. Perhaps it would prevent further miscommunications if you were more honest about your motivations.”

“Okay then. I don’t like you, I don’t trust you, and I’m not helping you expand your political empire. Is that enough honesty?”

“And how does your old master factor into your calculations?”

My voice sharpened. “I don’t see how that’s anything to do with you.”

“I assume you at least know that Morden and Drakh are working together?” I didn’t answer, but after a moment Levistus went on as if I’d agreed. “Should White Rose fall, the greatest beneficiary will not be Morden. It will be your old master. Whatever his long-term plans, it appears they involve placing Morden on the Council.” Levistus raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you still serve him after all?”

“Go screw yourself.”

Levistus watched me with an expression of polite inquiry. I drew a long breath and let it out, controlling myself. Stupid. He’s provoking me. “I’m not responsible for what Richard does.”

“You are Drakh’s apprentice.”

There was something in those words that was hard to describe. There was a kind of finality to it, as though Levistus were telling me something self-evident and timeless. Wind blows, fire consumes, I was Richard’s apprentice, so it was and so it would always be. “I am who I choose to be.”

“The steel does not choose to be made into a knife.”

“I’m not your knife, or his.”

“Then who are you, Alexander Verus?” Levistus asked. “What do you stand for? Whom do you serve?”

“You don’t have the right to demand answers to those questions.”

“Evasions. You have nothing upon which to stand. You do not understand yourself, and thus you are easily manipulated. Have you any conception of how far back your master has chosen your steps, shaped your path? You follow in his footsteps without the slightest understanding of how thoroughly you are controlled.”

I felt a twinge of fear at that. I had no way of knowing how much Levistus knew, or whether he was simply guessing, but what he was saying was too close to the things I secretly feared. If you can’t defend, attack. “Fine,” I said. “Then what do you stand for, Levistus? You tried to have me killed, not once but over and over again. If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have had Luna and Arachne killed too. You wouldn’t have done it because you’d judged them as unworthy. You wouldn’t even have done it because you particularly wanted them dead. They were just in your way. You ordered their deaths with no more concern than you’d have for checking your bank balance. You’re talking as though you think I’m going to take your opinions seriously. What can you possibly say that can outweigh everything you’ve done? Why should I listen to you?”

“Because you are involved in matters beyond your control,” Levistus said. “You no longer have the option of distancing yourself. Even should you abandon your position in the Keepers and go back to your isolation, it would only buy you a little time. You know that the confrontation will arrive. When it comes, on whose side will you stand?”

“I’m not on anyone’s side.”

Levistus made a disgusted noise. “Do not play the fool. If you hinder me, you help Drakh. If you fight against your old master, you assist me. This is elementary common sense.”

“Is that how you justify what you do?” I asked. “Everything for the sake of victory?”

“The Council has maintained stability in this world for thousands of years,” Levistus said. “Without us, the Dark mages and the monsters would have torn human civilisation apart millennia ago. Is that what you hope to accomplish?”

“And when Griff tortured Luna to get to the fateweaver? When Belthas tried to Harvest Arachne for her power? That was all for the greater good, was it? Don’t give me that bullshit.”

“Power will fall into someone’s hands. Would you prefer that mages such as Drakh or Morden had it instead?”

“Don’t dodge the question. How do you justify trying to kill me and my friends?”

“Agents are expendable,” Levistus said. Those odd colourless eyes rested on me with no particular expression. “In the sufficiently long term, everyone is expendable.”

“Including you?”

Levistus shrugged. It was an indifferent movement, and in an odd flash of insight I understood something about Levistus that I hadn’t realised before. Levistus wasn’t doing this for himself, not really. He might act out of self-interest, but at some level he did genuinely believe that by keeping himself in power, he was making the world around him a better place.

It was a worrying thought. Someone who’s amoral and selfish can be a threat to you, but they’re also a threat to everyone else, and that tends to limit how much time they can spend on you personally. But someone who believes in what he’s doing can convince other people that opposing you is the right thing to do. In the long run, that’s a lot more dangerous. “Enough philosophy,” I said. “What do you want?”

“The conflict between us has grown unproductive,” Levistus said. “I am willing to consider a truce.”

I studied Levistus. “In other words, you’ve got enough on your plate with Morden that you don’t have the time to keep going after me as well.”

“As I understand it, you have been making your own preparations for your old master’s return,” Levistus said. “I’m sure you have already calculated your chances of survival should you fight me and him at the same time. You would be wise to limit your enemies.”

“I thought you said that Richard was controlling everything I did.” I tilted my head, looking at Levistus curiously. “If I’m so much his servant, why would he be coming after me?”

“As I said—everyone is expendable.”

“Including your allies.” I tapped two fingers on my arm. “If all you wanted was a truce, all you needed to do was stop going after me. That means you want more.”

“As a part of our agreement,” Levistus said, “you will cease working against my interests. This means you will take no action against White Rose.”

I’d carried on tapping my fingers; as Levistus spoke I stopped for a second, then continued. “You realise I’m working for the Keepers now,” I said. I kept my voice casual. “I’m supposed to do what they tell me.”

“The Keepers serve the Council. They do not all serve the same Council.”

“Did it ever occur to you that this kind of corruption might be exactly why the Council has so much trouble effectively opposing Dark mages in the first place?”

“I am not here to engage you in a debate,” Levistus said. “Well?”

“You know,” I said, “I can’t help noticing that this deal seems a little uneven. You started all this by telling me to work for you or else. When I took the ‘or else,’ you tried to have me killed. Now you’re offering to stop trying to have me killed, and in exchange I’m supposed to commit treason yet again. Bit slanted in your favour, don’t you think?”

“It is the offer you have.”

“I’ll make you a counteroffer,” I said. “I’ll go back to the Keepers and do my job. You go back to the Council and do your job. We both ignore each other.”

“Please tell me you are not truly this stupid.”

“You know something, Levistus?” I said. “I’m getting a little tired of your backhanded insults. You talk like you’re the gatekeeper of civilisation and I’m the barbarian. It’s irritating.”

“Your irritation does not concern me,” Levistus said. “And your counteroffer is noted and rejected. My terms stand. Do you accept them, or reject them?”

“Your ‘terms’ are a glorified threat. Either I do what you want, or you’ll keep on being my enemy. You don’t have anything to offer me.”

“Correct. I will ask one final time. What is your answer?”

I looked at Levistus for a long moment. I could lie, obviously. Pretend to agree, then work against him. But I seriously doubted that Levistus was going to act any differently whether I told him yes or no. As far as he was concerned, I was just another Dark mage.

Just another mage . . .

“What happened to Leo?” I said.

Levistus blinked. It was a very small motion, there and gone in a second, but he didn’t manage to conceal it. For the first time in the conversation, I’d surprised him. “Who?”

“The kid Caldera and I found last night.” I kept my voice calm. “The mages who sent the mantis golem took him. What happened to him?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

I looked back at Levistus for a long moment. “No,” I said at last. “I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“Well?”

“The answer’s no,” I said. “I’m not going to be your agent to protect White Rose. In fact, I’m not working for you in any capacity. I don’t like you, Levistus. I’ve told you that twice already, and I don’t think you’ve really listened, so I’ll explain more thoroughly this time. I don’t like how you act, I don’t like what you do, and I don’t like what you stand for. You represent everything I most hate about the Council. You have no respect for human life, you deal constantly in betrayals, and yet somehow you also manage at the same time to be completely convinced of your moral superiority over everyone who isn’t a Light mage. Maybe you are Morden and Richard’s enemy, and maybe helping one of you does mean hurting the other. But there’s a certain point where trying to choose the lesser of two evils is just an exercise in futility. It doesn’t matter which of you wins; you’re both so bad that I honestly can’t decide who’d be worse. Working for you would be just as corrupting as being Richard’s apprentice, even if I trusted you enough to do it, which I don’t.” I looked up at Levistus. “Does that explain it well enough for you?”

Levistus looked back at me for a second. “You disappoint me.”

“Not halfway close to how disappointed I am in you. When I was a kid, I read stories where the white wizards were all good and moral. Do you have any idea how depressing it was to find out what the Light Council was really like?”

“Enough.”

Levistus didn’t speak loudly, but there was something in his tone that made me fall silent. When I didn’t speak for a few seconds, he went on. “You appear to be under the illusion that you have some level of choice. That this is an option that you are free to take or leave.” He regarded me steadily. “You claim that I have been your enemy. This is false. You are, at most, an inconvenience. Should you continue to work against me, that will change. For the first time, I will devote significant resources to your removal. I will not do so out of any personal grudge. I will do so because, as an active tool of Morden and of Drakh, you are a sufficient threat to warrant it.” Levistus’s voice was quite normal, and he looked at me steadily as he continued to speak. “You will be placed under siege. Your allies will be driven away or killed. Your bases of operation will be attacked. The process will not necessarily be swift. It is possible you will survive for months or even years. However, given enough time, the end is inevitable. You will be destroyed. And when you fall, there will be no one left to mourn your passing.”

I looked back at Levistus, and as I saw the expression on his face I felt a chill. It wasn’t so much the threat. I’ve been threatened plenty of times by mages, often in quite graphic and unpleasant ways. This was something different. I think what scared me the most was the matter-of-fact tone of voice. Levistus didn’t think he was bluffing. He had absolutely no doubt that he could do what he promised, and it shook me more than I’d really expected. For the first time I had a real, almost tangible sense of just how dangerous the man standing in front of me was.

I didn’t have an answer. Levistus turned and walked away. His footsteps echoed and faded into the background noise of the corridors, and I was left sitting alone by the pool. I looked down at the fish swimming in the water and wondered what I was going to do.

A few minutes later I heard footsteps and a woman in mage robes walked through the rock garden. As she saw me she paused. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

She gave me a doubtful look. “Should you be here?”

I took a moment to think about it. “I’m not really sure,” I said at last. I rose to my feet and walked out the way I came.